4Q 4P (my VOYA ratings). Naomi Shihab Nye and Paul B. Janeczko bring their award-winning poetry compiling skills together for "I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You," an anthology of poems in pairs from the perspective of men and women on different life topics. The poems all roll off the tongue, or the page, and seem to touch the heart, as if they know what you know. The poems touch on love, family, society, war, all of what we know in this life. Although the pairs are showing perspectives of men and women, sometimes this perspective is similar even if told with different words. I give this anthology a 4 for quality, because I did really enjoy it but there wasn't anything that seemed to break boundaries. I gave a 4 for popularity because I think teens would like this book of poetry, but it might take some encouragement to pick it up. ( )

This is a paired collection of his and hers poems, though most of them to me didn't seem to deal with gendered issues. I did enjoy some of them, but others just weren't my cup of tea. I can recognize though that this is a quality collection, so I gave my rating to reflect that. ( )

4Q, 3P

I am not partial to poetry, but the way each of these stories were paired provided great insight into how men and women think differently (and in some cases alike) in regards to major themes in life (family, marriage, love, school, growing up). The raw emotion, the subtle longing, or the gentle reflection captured by some of the poems were particularly compelling. I appreciate that many of the poets feature poems of adolescence and growing up, but I feel that this book is not aimed at young adults. Certain topics will be unappealing for the very young, and the figurative language will be difficult to grasp (for instance the topic of marriage). This is definitely a book that should be given to older teens, or certain paired poems chosen for younger teens depending on their development and age. ( )

5Q 4P

This book is such a unique idea - it pairs poems together, one written by a man and the other a woman, in order to illustrate how men and women see the world differently (including how they see each other). The juxtaposition of the male and female perspective shows how truly different we can be from one another, and how surprisingly similar at times. As Nancy Vasilakas, from Horn Book Magazine, points out "Sometimes the juxtapositions are obvious, but not always, and part of the fun of the book is delving into the poems deeply enough to discover some faint or unexpected clue to the male-female conundrum. ( )

Nye and Janeczko have each independently produced worthy poetry anthologies (This Same Sky, 12/92, Wherever Home Begins, 11/95); here they join forces for a collection with a twist. The poems come in pairs, the male-authored entry always leading and the female-authored one always getting the last word. The coupled poems sometimes share a subject, sometimes a setting, sometimes a theme or an image (Agha Shahid Ali's "Snowman" and Robin Boody Galguera's "Alloy" both address questions of culture, E. Ethelbert Miller's "Dressed Up" and Naomi Stroud Simmons' "With Reservation" offer quirky takes on fancy dress) that directs readers to a specific way into each poem. The poems themselves, almost all contemporary free verse and from poets ranging from famous (Rita Dove, W. S. Merwin) to less known, are of a high standard. Though the gender counterpoint really plays little part in the juxtaposition, the pairings are piquant and provide a manageable way to start talking about a very large collection of poetry. An engaging marginal dialogue, taken from Nye's and Janeczko's collaborative fax correspondence, appears alongside the appendix and permits a revealing peek behind the scenes. Highly readable notes from contributors are included, as is an index of poems and a gender-segregated index of poets. R--Recommended. Reviewed from galleys (c) Copyright 1996, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1996, Simon, [256p], $17.00. Grades 7-12. (Deborah Stevenson, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, May 1996 (Vol. 49, No. 9))

Has won YALSA's Best Books for Young Adults, 1997 and School Library Journal's Best Books for Young Adults, 1996. It received starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal.